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15 September 2015 - 11:11, by , in News, No comments
Researchers have shown that a smartwatch’s motion sensors can be used to detect what keys you’re pressing with your left hand (or whatever hand the watch is on) and thus guess at the words you’re typing. Their findings suggest that it’s possible for cybercrooks to come up with an app that camouflages itself – for...
14 September 2015 - 17:07, by , in Uncategorized, No comments
The Kilton Public Library in the US town of West Lebanon, New Hampshire is only 5 years old, and its modern sensibilities show: for one thing, it brags about sustainable technologies such as ground source heat pumps and radiant floor slabs throughout. It’s also a cutting-edge library in an entirely different sense: in July, it...
14 September 2015 - 11:53, by , in Uncategorized, No comments
– Approximate Bitcoin-to-US$ rate (from oanda.com) – Mt. Gox was once the world’s biggest Bitcoin exchange. Now it’s a heap of digital rubble, after collapsing in early 2014. The company filed for bankruptcy after admitting it had “lost” customers’ bitcoins that were worth about $500,000,000 at the time. “Losing” bitcoins isn’t like a regular bank...
14 September 2015 - 10:53, by , in News, No comments
It’s been reported that New York City’s police department can tap into about 6000 street cameras, two-thirds of which are privately owned, with another 7000 in public housing and more than 4000 in the city’s subway stations. They’re not easy to count with precision. But it’s likely that many major cities are on par, if not...
14 September 2015 - 9:02, by , in News, No comments
Microsoft wants people to upgrade to Windows 10 so much that it’s giving it away to home users for free – in some cases, to people who haven’t asked for it. People with Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1 devices are discovering that Windows 10 was downloaded to a hidden folder on their computers without prompting. The unprompted downloading of...
11 September 2015 - 16:10, by , in News, No comments
The personal details of thousands of Lloyds Bank account holders have gone missing following the suspected theft of a data storage box. The breach affects any customers who made a claim under a Royal Sun Alliance (RSA) emergency home cover policy attached to their £25 a month Lloyds Premier bank account between 2006 and 2012. RSA said...
11 September 2015 - 11:50, by , in News, No comments
The Android vulnerability known as Stagefright is back in the limelight. Stagefright is a bug, or more accurately a series of similar bugs, in an Android programming library called libstagefright. Libstagefright is part of the operating system that handles media files such as movies. If you receive an MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) message that links...
11 September 2015 - 10:58, by , in Uncategorized, No comments
Pass a 350-foot no-fly law banning drones from buzzing over our heads without our express permission? Oh no, I think not, California Governor Jerry Brown said on Wednesday as he vetoed Senate Bill 142. The ban, which would have only affected commercial and private unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), would have meant that “burdensome regulation” and...
11 September 2015 - 10:49, by , in Uncategorized, No comments
The US Department of Energy (DOE), which oversees the US power grid, nuclear arsenal and national science labs, is a prime target for cyberattackers who want to harm the United States. Now we are beginning to glimpse the extent of the threat, thanks to unclassified records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by USA Today. The government...
11 September 2015 - 10:28, by , in News, No comments
Deep in the bowels of the labyrinth that is the US’s Transportation Security Administration (TSA), luggage trundling along on conveyor belts gets barcoded, weighed, sniffed for traces of explosives, 3D imaged, and, if it appears suspicious, opened. As The Washington Post detailed in November 2014, TSA handlers have a set of master keys to open...